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Album Review: Ruby the Hatchet – ‘Planetary Space Child’

Album Review: Ruby the Hatchet – ‘Planetary Space Child’ Likely that this may be my shortest review ever as typing time is not listening to Ruby the Hatchet (Ruby) time! Ruby are a five piece from the US that exist in the 1960s and travel to the present to blow our minds. Planetary Space Child is the new album, released in late August, and is a thumping, riff heavy and face melting brute of an album.

The cover of the album is exquisite and takes you back to the days when you would gaze at the cover art and pore over every piece of text on every surface. I like an album that stands out amongst other albums, as it’s always easier to find, and this bluey-purpley monster jumps out at you. It looks different, it looks great and it’s an eye grabber. A smart cover which screams quality.

When you get the vinyl onto the death deck you are transported to the world of Ruby the Hatchet. Maybe a bit sludge, maybe a bit doom but 100% on the mark classic vintage rock with hooks that drill into your subconscious. There are two tracks that take this album to the next level and those are the primary reasons that you should buy this album. Hold on, am I saying that buying this album for just two tracks out of the seven is good business? Well, yes I am and I am also saying that all seven tracks are excellent but these two are completely different class and out of the hundreds of albums we get sent in a year, these two tracks stand out as gems.

The album opens with a long atmospheric title track before we get mugged by Killer. At just over four minutes it all starts fairly sedately with a driving riff being punched along by a wheezy organ. Then the lead vocal of Jillian Taylor drops in and within thirty seconds of this doom train leaving the station the ear-worm of ‘I’m a killer’ is stuck in your brain. The vocal here is both sweet and sinister. It provides the variation alongside a riff that just keeps thumping. In the middle of this, just as we are settling down, the guitar and the organ decide to have a little head to head before the vocal comes back in, this time darker than when it left us. More organ, more riffage and a break before we tie it all up. My Spotify had this on repeat for about a week. Yep, nice quick review when it takes a week per song!

From the second track on the album to the second last, we have Gemini, the second of the gems. Again, a riff-fest from the start, we have a thudding groove here and two vocalists. Apart from the mix quality, which is sublime, everything else about this song tells you that it is late sixties or maybe seventies at a push. But it can’t be, if that was the case then we would all know this band as this sort of talent can’t hide for that long. ‘Geeemmm-in-iiiii’ goes the chorus and it’s in my ear fighting it out with Killer to take up permanent residence. However, this is the killer track. It is everything and then some.

Yep, there is another five tracks on this awesome album and you should go find them for yourself, I have already got you started on your way. Sure there is a feel of Uncle Acid and of the increasingly bizarre Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell but Ruby are a different class. Different class and all class, infact. This is a killer album and it’s out there in vinyl for those that like their rock to come from the grooves. A coloured disc is also an option, so dig it out and get into Ruby the Hatchet. One of the best albums this year and easily two songs in the top ten songs of 2017. For a band only three releases old, who knows what the future brings, but based on this album Ruby the Hatchet is one to watch.

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